Talking Tech: 7 alternatives to Facebook Messenger

Aug. 2, 2014
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Facebook's message to consumers / Facebook

by Jefferson Graham, USA TODAY

by Jefferson Graham, USA TODAY

SANTA MONICA -- Facebook had a lot of people talking this week about new changes to its popular messaging app -- if you want to chat on Facebook, you'll have to download the separate Facebook Messenger app and keep it running at the same time as Facebook.

"That's kind of a pain," says Facebook user Stephanie Smith. "I think it's easier to just press one button, have one click and have it all in an integrated service."

Her sentiments are not unique -- so we went out and surveyed great alternatives to Facebook Messenger for those who don't want to have that second app running all the time.

The advantage of a chat app over straight texting on a phone: Fans say chat apps are more reliable than standalone text apps on phones, because it's internet based, you don't have to worry about your texts not going through.

-- What'sApp (Free, Apple, Android, Windows, Blackberry) is the most popular stand-alone chat app, with 450 million users. Facebook snapped up the service earlier this year, for $19 billion, but has yet to make any substantial changes. WhatsApp is more popular overseas than here, as a way to make global texts for free. "It's the easiest way to reach my international friends," says Kelsey Doorey, who runs the Vow to be Chic startup here. "You can contact people who live all over the world."

-- Viber (Free, Apple, Android, Windows, Blackberry,) Also popular worldwide, with 300 million users, Viber is more than just free texting -- it also has a new desktop app that lets you make free phone calls and texts worldwide to other Viber users from your computer. Japanese media company Rakuten bought Viber for $900 million earlier this year.

-- Google Hangouts (Free, Android, Apple.) The old Google Talk chat service morphed into Hangouts in 2013, and while Google hasn't released usage numbers, Hangouts offers video chat and a very cool feature only available on Apple devices -- free phone calls to any number in the United State or Canada, from within the app, without having to pay carrier charges.

-- MessageMe (Free, Apple, Android) is designed with group messaging in mind. Like Viber, it has a desktop app to keep the conversations flowing between mobile and desktop. "MessageMe has been one of our favorites," says Bob Wall, the Chief Technology Officer for start-up Washio. "One of the nice aspects is that you can do video, you can do photo, you can do text, you can look up pictures from the internet and put them right in there. So it takes messaging like one step further."

-- TapTalk (Free, Apple, Android.)The new service advertises itself as "one to one pics and videos in a split second," Wall's Washio boss Jordan Metzner, is a big fan. "It allows you to send a really quick image, or video to your friends, and it knows your location as well. And it's almost instantaneous. So the moment you send it to your friend, you can't send that same picture to someone else, you need to send them a new picture."

-- GroupMe: (Free, Apple, Android, Windows) is a way to text beyond one-to-one, with multiple friends.

"I've used it on trips with groups of people, and it's easy," says Giselle Andrea of Los Angeles. "To stay in touch with people."

-- TextPlus (Free, Apple, Android,) has both free unlimited texting, and free phone calls via a TextPlus generated phone number to the 60 million TextPlus members. Outside of the network is two cents a minute.

Over 12 billion messages are sent daily by Facebook's 1.3 billion members. Since Facebook sent out reminders this week about the changes, folks have responded by downloading Messenger in a big way. The app is the no. 1 most downloaded app on iTunes download chart.

Facebook says it made the change to make Messenger a more robust chat experience. But Metzner thinks there's more to it.

"The ability to send money back and forth using mobile apps is getting popular with apps like Venmo, and other ways that consumers can send money to their friends. So what Facebook is trying to do is build a robust messaging app, where they can take that messaging platform, and remove it from Facebook, so as a Facebook user, you'll be forced to have both apps, but each app acts independently and can do one core function very well."